He’s right that neither of these offenses qualifies as dynamic. Barring a weird turn of events — my usual caveat about turnovers applies, as always — this won’t be a high scoring game. Can the Gators shut Georgia out, though? I guess that’s up to Jim Chaney.

Florida has those terrific corners, so I expect to see plenty of single coverage. That’s a recipe for disaster if the Dawgs decide to come out in power formations and run the ball, because it’ll be an invitation to throw those safeties into run support and clog the line of scrimmage, something that’s been a winning approach throughout the season for opposing defenses.

Of course, with the way this season has gone, Chaney will probably find a way to do just enough on offense to have the game come down to special teams play. Winning!

I can’t see anyone who has watched this game for the past 25 years having a hunch or gut feeling Georgia wins. When we won 3 in a row a few years back I started to feel better about the series, but then the 2014 and 2015 games happened and I feel like we’re snakebit in this game. Even if we have the better team (which we absolutely don’t this year) I go in expecting a loss.

This is one of the very rare occasions where I had a positive hunch going into any UGA-UF game. After attending my first UGA-UF game as a student back in ’96 (something like a 47-7 loss, which felt more like 77-7), I’ve been scarred and pretty much negatively warped ever since.

The 2014 game killed me. It will be a while before I feel good about us getting a win. I went down there expecting an ass kicking victory lap. We had the East wrapped up and the Gators had already quit on Muschamp. That game absolutely started the gears turning towards Richt deservedly getting fired.

Yep. It’s also why, as good as he was in most other games, I don’t miss Pruitt. Not sure how you don’t put 9-10 in the box, and/or just sit DEs/OLBs who refuse to set the edge properly when it was obvious UF wasn’t even trying to pass.

I want some of what you’re smoking. I’ll honestly be surprised if we keep it within two touchdowns. Everything Florida is superb at is where we suck (great secondary and great DL). They are just going to crowd the box and harass Eason all day with no windows to throw to on the outside. If we break double digits in points, that will be an accomplishment.

They will crowd the box, unless we use formations to make that impossible. If we spread out 4 receivers, UF can’t put 8 guys in the box to stop the run. And Chubb has a fighting chance against 6 in the box, even with a crappy OL and a good DL.

While UF is the favorite, and deservedly so, if our coaches scheme properly, we will have a chance to put up some points.

Yeah, but that is not the kind of offense the coaches want to run. And the coaches have already proven that they are more than willing to lose games if we can’t win them running the offense they want to run.

Their best performance was actually against Kentucky when they played at the 93rd percentile. Yes…Missouri is the highest rated S&P+ team they have beaten (while playing at the 65th percentile), but they have played three games at the 87th percentile or better (which are pretty awesome performances). Georgia actually played better against Tennessee than Florida (and much worse against Vandy) in that respect.

I think you’re conflating (purposely) what S&P+ tries to measure. It doesn’t measure quality purely based on wins and losses or even strength of schedule…it tries to normalize your performances for the quality of opponent (i.e. a good team should take a bad team like Vandy to the woodshed). Florida has been consistently good this season and that is evident in their ratings. Georgia had one game (83rd percentile against UNC), two okay-ish games against Missouri and Tennesee (53rd and 68th percentiles, respectively, and a bunch of God-awful games against everybody else (1st percentile against Nichols with a high of 38th percentile against South Carolina).

Georgia’s worst loss is against the 100th rated team in S&P+. Florida’s worst loss is against the 26th rated team. Mock Bill C’s Skynet labs at your own peril, my friend.

But we’ve seen it all year. And the coaches will still line up with two tight ends and run it.

The only thing that gives me hope is that we’ve been dumb offensively mostly in games where we expected an easy win. In games that we expected a tough defense, the coaches are more likely to open up the playbook and be creative. And there’s no way they don’t expect Florida to be tough defensively.

If they open it up again, and I hope they do, then it will be obvious that Smart has been playing the power stuff against weak opponents for the future and fighting for the W against UT and UF. He just took the ass whipping against Ole Miss.

How about this? We scored more on UNC, Tennessee, Sackerlina, and Missouri than we did on Vandy. Vandy was (hopefully) an outlier.

Not that we’re anywhere close to the 2007 team, but that team needed a miracle to win at Vandy that year (last play of the game, I believe). Two weeks later, we unleashed a can on the Gators. Of course, Timmy was hurt…. 😉

Lots of outside plays with pulling linemen will open up the running lanes for all the backs. And slants to Nauta and Blazevich. Throw deep to Godwin late in the 3rd quarter when they think we’ve abandoned the deep ball.

There was a lot of rotation on the offensive line today. Both Kendall Baker and Michael Barnett got some first-team reps at left tackle alongside Isaiah Wynn, who was at left guard. Dyshon Sims rotated in as the first-team left guard and I saw him a couple of times at right tackle. Brandon Kublanow even got a rep or two at guard today.

When you are starting the Cocktail party in the face and your choices are a D2 grad transfer, a guy that was playing DL just two weeks ago, and a guy with zero starts…yeah, I think something is ‘there.’

My concern is that if the Gators choose to clog the line, and who wouldn’t at this point, we’ll continue to run the same stuff, over and over and over, a la Nichols and Vandy and we’ll end up not only losing but looking bad doing it. At least in the past Georgia tended to start the season slow and get better as we went along. This year we seem to have started well and regressed as the season wears on. Lose this game and I think the players may throw in the towel. I don’t know if anyone is giving them the “was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” speech, but from what I can see the team doesn’t appear to be buying in. Somehow, this week feels like Kirby’s last chance to salvage this season. I sure hope I’m overreacting.

I am not going to go as far as saying this game is a referendum on Kirby and the coaching staff but as a fan I need to see something this weekend that tells me we are turning the corner and getting better. We have had two weeks to prepare for this game and break down the film on what the Gators do offensively and defensively, there is no reason to come out and run the same old 3 TE/FB power sets that we have run over the first part of the season (unless that is what the defense “gives” us which they won’t). I need to see some wrinkles that scheme around our weakness on the offensive line and maximize our strength at RB and TE. I need our defense to shut the Gators running attack down and force Del Rio to beat us with his arm.

If we come out and play well (a la UT) and lose a close game but look competitive for the whole 60 minutes then I’ll be ok. If we shit the bed again (a la ’14, ’15, and against Vandy/Ole Miss this year) then I doubt I will watch another game this year.

This game will go a long way towards telling me something about Kirby. If S&P + is to be believed, we’ve been trending backwards all season long. It doesn’t speak highly of the coaching that your first game is your best and you have regressed the rest of the year. I’m hoping the bye week was a chance for a reset and this is where we start to see improvement.

Having no grand analytical understanding of football, I’ll present some thoughts on our struggles this year on offense. To my eye, Chubb runs better in a one cut and go play call than in a shotgun spread, delay draw type style. The one just fits him better than the other. Sony is somewhat the opposite. Michel is shiftier, while Chubb can cut, historically, at full speed.

To my mind, that’s an issue with our offense, in that Chaney just can’t seem to figure out how to get Chubb any space to work with running out of downhill plays, but he’s less effective out of the spread plays.

If we go with the Mizzou and Vandy offense, we lose. Period. Which is try to establish an inside run game against an immovable object, with obvious run formations

If we go with the UT gameplan, which was push the ball downfield, attack the edges, and mix in some smashmouth we have bigger (insert word for male genitalia) than you, then we can have some success. A win is still a tall task with their corners, but as I was talking about last week. If a team has good corners and likes to leave them out there on an island, you have to have a QB who can throw the WRs open to beat them. Eason can be that guy and will be that guy. My hope is he grew up the last two weeks and has become that guy.

I don’t envy Eason his Mission Impossible this week, but we only win if he can successfully separate his receivers from the UF corners, hit the small windows, and force that defense to back away from the line of scrimmage.

Yeah. Strange for AU. Plenty of talent, no identity. I suspect Gus would like a do-over on Clempson and might feel he could improve on the aTM game. All that sId, I’m not sold on the idea that AU is all wine and roses. I think they’ve played less talented teams lately.

UGA is similar in that th have all the talent, but a lack of identity. That’s why I keep wondering what the team would be like with the older QB playing.

A freshman QB, a mess of an OL, no “go to” big receiver, DB’s that are toasted, a kicker who has never been under pressure, a general SNAFU drill on special teams, an OC without an identity and an HC who wants one we don’t have….

…if there is a God, we deserve this victory as the underdog. My heart says the D scores a TD and we win a close, low scoring affair. My head says we get a beatdown in the range of 35 – 10 that includes turnovers and a missed FG or two.

Here’s your Kharma….2019 CFB Championship game is in Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. A sea of red visors on the UGA side of the stadium will be very fashion forward as we cheer on Kirby’s Dawgs in such a Smart place (see what I did there?). Get the Ian Poulter visor w/ spiked hair model and you’ll look 20 years younger. Break it in now…resistance is futile in the face of #theProcess.

I’m still very bearish on the outcome of this game especially because we still look awful on offense. 420 yards with only 16 points to show for it will do that to you. I’m just very worried that a definite mismatch in special teams is going to turn the tide. I’m sure everyone remembers the last 2 years momentum changed due to bonehead special teams plays.

Barring an offensive miracle we are toast. Freshman QB with porous line protection, WR’s who absolutely can’t get separation, RB’s that get tackled in the back field because everybody including the cheer leaders know by the formations when we are going to run. Oh yea and add in punt return and kick return units that are good for a minimum 1 to 2 brain farts that will cost us what little field position we might have and it’s hard to smell victory.

On defense we have a unit that plays the Georgia Way. Hold a team like Vandy or UT for the whole game then let them score at the end for the win. Frankly I would prefer a blow out than another tear your heart out last minute loss.

Here’s hoping that the enema that was the Vandy game thoroughly cleansed DawgNations’ collective colons and souls, which, with a bye week, puts us on track for a resounding victory on Sat. Let the Big Dawg Eat!

Three big ifs for us have a chance: 1) if we don’t do dumb shit on special teams. 2) if we don’t just try to run up the middle all game because we can’t block decent defensive fronts, and 3) if receivers don’t drop balls.

I just realized something today. Do you realized they’ve scored a Non-Offensive T.D (or safety) in 7 of the last 10 games vs. us and 8 of the last 14, including the last 3 and 4 of the last 5? That’s staggering.

I am pretty sure it has at least been since the ’80s that we’ve scored one against them in this game. If you want to mark the difference in this game and all the others on the schedule and why this has been such a maddening game, that’s it.

Think of all the punt returns, pick-sixes or scoop and scores we’ve had vs. Tech, Auburn and Tennessee in the last 20 years.

Quote Of The Day

“He had some good pointers,” Smart said about Saban’s advice on dealing with the quarterback battle. “But I’ll keep that between he and I. I’m always looking for good advice especially dealing with the quarterback situation.” — Dawgs247, 5/16/18